How in demand are IT's 2016?

[contigo26]

I have intentions of enlisting and join the Navy with a rate in IT (Information Systems Technician. How available or wait will I have to do when there is an opening? Is it in demand or will i have to wait a long time?

I graduated with a degree in Information Systems in University and want to pursue this rate in the Navy and nothing else.

Also what if scored pretty badly on ASVAB and they gave me all sorts of rates I am not interested in? Can I still back out? Can anyone help explain the process?

[YN2(AW)Williams]

The manning numbers are public record and can be found at
http://www.public.navy.mil/bupers-npc/enlisted/community/crypto_it/Pages/IT.aspx
Click the option labeled "Community Overview."

The process goes like this:
1. Inquire about joining with recruiter, officer or enlisted.

2. Take ASVAB test. If you graduated from university in a technical field, you should have a pretty easy time with this.

3. Your ASVAB score will be used in conjunction with your MEPS physical to determine your academic and physical qualifications. For example I got a 99 on my ASVAB (highest possible) but the Navy considers me colorblind so I am disqualified from many jobs.

4. After your basic job eligibility is determined, they will begin a security screening process. At this stage no clearance is going to be granted or denied, they just need to look for items that might be concerning like owning property abroad, foreign investments, etc. This will slim down the remaining jobs available to what you can actually sign for.

5. After stages 1-5, you will meet with a detailer (NOT! your recruiter) who will begin the actual process of selecting a rate. I cannot stress enough that your recruiter has absolutely no control over your job. The detailer will tell you what you qualify for, what dates those jobs will ship out on, and if you need some help learning what they do they can explain it to you. Other than that, it is totally up to you at that point if you take one or walk. If you do select a job, you will sign a contract and swear in.

6. You will enter into "DEP" after signing for a job. This is a pseudo state where you are not technically in the Navy, but are expected to uphold the contract you signed. This period can last anywhere from a couple of weeks to several months until you actually leave for boot camp. In my case, it lasted from early February to mid-August of that same year.

At any point in this process you are free to leave, all the way up until you leave for boot camp. If you decide that you do not like any of the jobs then it is absolutely your right, and no one can take that from you. However once you sign your contract at MEPS (when you select your job) you are expected to honor the contract. Once you selected a job, there were budgetary considerations numbering in the tens of thousands of dollars that were made, and if you back out after that it will mess up a lot of stuff for a lot of people. Plus it is just plain dishonorable.

Once your DEP period is over, you will go back to MEPS one last time. You will do another physical, confirm your contract and terms, then swear in again. At that point, once you swear in the second time, you are in the Navy and all the legal consequences good and bad.

Now you say that you are only interested in IT, but there are other jobs that are in the same field such as AECF-FC and CTN. There are any number of reasons you may get disqualified for a position, so be prepared with backup options just in case.

[LT Guppy]

To add:

5a: the jobs that are available for detailer a to offer change DAILY. Its all a numbers game, and it's not up to them what's open on the day you happen to be there.

6a: you can be in DEP for up to a year, so theoretically if you signed for a job tomorrow, you could ship anywhere from the next day to Feb 2017. The extremes are unlikely, but possible. The average these days seems to be about 4-6 months.

[contigo26]

Thank you for all the information, you guys are right, i should intend to have a backup.

The reason i had in mind to choose specifically IT was that i was interested more in gearing towards computer systems, and network which i saw the IT had and the certifications they receive which led me to be interested.

Anything that dealt with like let's say military radar, and others was not what I had in mind because I have gained a well understanding with what I learned in college, but yes i think i should consider having a backup because i would never know. But i appreciate all the help in making my decision to join and choose what i want to do.

It's been about two months since i graduated from college, and its been rough filling applications to tons of businesses. I could have filled over 100+ and yet to hear from a select few of 2-3 and get screened and interviewed but never heard back, which made me feel that I lacked experience which led me to discover the Navy which was recommended by some friends, and what they can provide you.

[YN2(AW)Williams]

Definitely check out some officer programs, and also CTN.

CTNs are the crypto-hackers and cyber defense for the military. With foreign contacts it will be tough to get that job, but would definitely be in line with what you are looking for. The Navy will also help arrange and pay for all your certs like Ethical Hacker and what not.

AECF-FC are the guys who handle the fire control software for the missile systems on ships. A lot of networking remote systems and troubleshooting startup procedures.

[CoolHandL]

I have never able to fully decipher Community Overview figures. What are EPA, WIP, and NV?

[IdeaGuy]

Thank you for all the information, you guys are right, i should intend to have a backup.

The reason i had in mind to choose specifically IT was that i was interested more in gearing towards computer systems, and network which i saw the IT had and the certifications they receive which led me to be interested.

Anything that dealt with like let's say military radar, and others was not what I had in mind because I have gained a well understanding with what I learned in college, but yes i think i should consider having a backup because i would never know. But i appreciate all the help in making my decision to join and choose what i want to do.

It's been about two months since i graduated from college, and its been rough filling applications to tons of businesses. I could have filled over 100+ and yet to hear from a select few of 2-3 and get screened and interviewed but never heard back, which made me feel that I lacked experience which led me to discover the Navy which was recommended by some friends, and what they can provide you.

I completely know how you feel. The same exact thing happened to me. I went to school for software engineering though, dropped out half way, but still built a ton of software that were personal projects, competed in hack a thons, and this got me some attention.

In IT can you build stuff? As a coder guy, I never really learned much about IT. Is it possible to build stuff with your IT skills?

e.g. I could write some code that will display a ted feed, link to the original post, build a vote system for users to say whether they liked the talk or not, then have the UI element do some neat animation off the screen if the user votes down. Building personal projects like this & open sourcing the code got some employers to interview me.

Is there equivalent stuff to do in IT ?

[contigo26]

I completely know how you feel. The same exact thing happened to me. I went to school for software engineering though, dropped out half way, but still built a ton of software that were personal projects, competed in hack a thons, and this got me some attention.

In IT can you build stuff? As a coder guy, I never really learned much about IT. Is it possible to build stuff with your IT skills?

e.g. I could write some code that will display a ted feed, link to the original post, build a vote system for users to say whether they liked the talk or not, then have the UI element do some neat animation off the screen if the user votes down. Building personal projects like this & open sourcing the code got some employers to interview me.

Is there equivalent stuff to do in IT ?


During my schooling we were introduced to basics of computers then went in depth further. We learned about the different components of a computer, how to assemble it, test if it works, also learned some programming like HTML, PHP, CSS, JavaScript, made some simple website forms for projects and stuff, and more on the topics we learned about handling a business and applying your IT skills in a company whether its managing a server, doing maintenance, updates, security and stuff.

You'll be building a PC from scratch if that's what you meant. But most of the time you dont really build alot. You just assist the needs of the business being able to support, troubleshoot, finding the cause of the problem of why the PC isn't working or this particular programs like Outlook, MS Office and stuff. Also pretty much implement ideas along the way to improve your systems.

[FlyNavy]

I completely know how you feel. The same exact thing happened to me. I went to school for software engineering though, dropped out half way, but still built a ton of software that were personal projects, competed in hack a thons, and this got me some attention.

In IT can you build stuff? As a coder guy, I never really learned much about IT. Is it possible to build stuff with your IT skills?

e.g. I could write some code that will display a ted feed, link to the original post, build a vote system for users to say whether they liked the talk or not, then have the UI element do some neat animation off the screen if the user votes down. Building personal projects like this & open sourcing the code got some employers to interview me.

Is there equivalent stuff to do in IT ?

If you're talking about IT's in the Navy, as in the rate, they aren't going to be doing much coding.

Your best bet for that would be CTN. And if you were to head that route I would say have a good understanding of a few high and low level languages, especially anything based in C.

/r
CTT1

[IdeaGuy]

If you're talking about IT's in the Navy, as in the rate, they aren't going to be doing much coding.

Your best bet for that would be CTN. And if you were to head that route I would say have a good understanding of a few high and low level languages, especially anything based in C.

/r
CTT1

I was wondering about that actually. And I tried to get into the Information Dominance Core as an IT. But they rejected me because I have some debt. I think I told them I am a software engineer, but they didn't seem to care. I've studied their publicly available client side code (*.navy.mil, navy.com) via ctrl-shift-i and ctrl-u in chrome, and can build everything I've seen. But oh well.

So I went into the AECF instead. I saw that there is a "computer programming" apprenticeship. Do you know how those work?

I've studied C/C++/Java/VisualBasic/Python in College, but it's been years since I've used them as these strongly typed oop languages (except C) tend to require more lines of code to solve the same problems JavaScript can solve in twice as less code.

[IdeaGuy]

During my schooling we were introduced to basics of computers then went in depth further. We learned about the different components of a computer, how to assemble it, test if it works, also learned some programming like HTML, PHP, CSS, JavaScript, made some simple website forms for projects and stuff, and more on the topics we learned about handling a business and applying your IT skills in a company whether its managing a server, doing maintenance, updates, security and stuff.

You'll be building a PC from scratch if that's what you meant. But most of the time you dont really build alot. You just assist the needs of the business being able to support, troubleshoot, finding the cause of the problem of why the PC isn't working or this particular programs like Outlook, MS Office and stuff. Also pretty much implement ideas along the way to improve your systems.

i got a job for local business that had their own in house servers (it was pretty cool as I've never seen real servers before being that I am a software guy) and I worked with a College Grad in Systems Administration (he was
a great guy I liked him a lot).

Everytime something broke I wanted to look at the code and he wanted to look at the logs.

He knew how to use the buttons and menus from the software to make it do
stuff. I knew how rewrite the software to make it do stuff.

e.g.
Sales Person: "Can't we have a button that does this and that?"
Systems Admin: "No because there is no button that does that and this"
Me: "I could just make an html form submission element whose action
points to a back end script I'll write that'll make CRUD requests to various API's so
that this and that can be done."
Everyone: "ummm, what??"

pretty much no one knew what I was doing so I was laid off. Thus I joined
The Navy. Lol. Where I live there are no coding jobs.

The Systems Admin knew a lot about protocols, the operating system, how to set up a server from
scratch, and how to set up our telephony software, & pretty much the same thing you described.

Do you use any type of special software to do your IT stuff? He used all sorts of software.

How do you go about Implementing your idea's to improve the systems? Can you give some examples?

[contigo26]

i got a job for local business that had their own in house servers (it was pretty cool as I've never seen real servers before being that I am a software guy) and I worked with a College Grad in Systems Administration (he was
a great guy I liked him a lot).

Everytime something broke I wanted to look at the code and he wanted to look at the logs.

He knew how to use the buttons and menus from the software to make it do
stuff. I knew how rewrite the software to make it do stuff.

e.g.
Sales Person: "Can't we have a button that does this and that?"
Systems Admin: "No because there is no button that does that and this"
Me: "I could just make an html form submission element whose action
points to a back end script I'll write that'll make CRUD requests to various API's so
that this and that can be done."
Everyone: "ummm, what??"

pretty much no one knew what I was doing so I was laid off. Thus I joined
The Navy. Lol. Where I live there are no coding jobs.

The Systems Admin knew a lot about protocols, the operating system, how to set up a server from
scratch, and how to set up our telephony software, & pretty much the same thing you described.

Do you use any type of special software to do your IT stuff? He used all sorts of software.

How do you go about Implementing your idea's to improve the systems? Can you give some examples?

I'm doing an internship at a healthcare facility with thousands employees with over different regional hospitals, hospices around the area, and I work at the operations center for IT where we do all of the call-centers, and support. We do use alot of softwares in monitoring every single equipment whether its (power supplies, switches, routers, phones, etc...)

One of the softwares we use called Solarwinds basically monitors all your devices and bandwidth connected on your network. Ensures and gives you real-time updates whether a device such as a power supply is running in battery backup, if it restarted on its own, when did it do that. It gives every information possible to be able to analyze the situation of that device.

The softwares are a great tool to analyze your networks and traffic.

How implementing your idea's to improve the systems?

An example I can relate to is when i worked at a past university campus. Our boss wanted to integrate wireless technology in all of the classrooms in the department where I worked. I was tasked with another to do research online, looking for products that will fit within reasonable budget and the features necessary needed.
Basically we setup this product which would allow us to be able to control everything from an iPhone which connects to that product wirelessly and be able to use your phone as a remote control. Your able to control turning on the projector, being able to switch modes, to a dvd player, control volume and stuff. There's alot more planning involved for bigger businesses but that's just one of the few planning phases to implement something.

[FlyNavy]

I was wondering about that actually. And I tried to get into the Information Dominance Core as an IT. But they rejected me because I have some debt. I think I told them I am a software engineer, but they didn't seem to care. I've studied their publicly available client side code (*.navy.mil, navy.com) via ctrl-shift-i and ctrl-u in chrome, and can build everything I've seen. But oh well.

The debt is what killed you there.
The single most common factor that get people into espionage is debt. Whether it's another country feeding them money to pay for that in return for intelligence or just an example of poor management, debt has been probably the most common factor in cases where people turn into spies for other countries.

It's just not something they're going to be willing to bend on.

/r
CTT1

[IdeaGuy]

I'm doing an internship at a healthcare facility with thousands employees with over different regional hospitals, hospices around the area, and I work at the operations center for IT where we do all of the call-centers, and support. We do use alot of softwares in monitoring every single equipment whether its (power supplies, switches, routers, phones, etc...)

One of the softwares we use called Solarwinds basically monitors all your devices and bandwidth connected on your network. Ensures and gives you real-time updates whether a device such as a power supply is running in battery backup, if it restarted on its own, when did it do that. It gives every information possible to be able to analyze the situation of that device.

The softwares are a great tool to analyze your networks and traffic.

How implementing your idea's to improve the systems?

An example I can relate to is when i worked at a past university campus. Our boss wanted to integrate wireless technology in all of the classrooms in the department where I worked. I was tasked with another to do research online, looking for products that will fit within reasonable budget and the features necessary needed.
Basically we setup this product which would allow us to be able to control everything from an iPhone which connects to that product wirelessly and be able to use your phone as a remote control. Your able to control turning on the projector, being able to switch modes, to a dvd player, control volume and stuff. There's alot more planning involved for bigger businesses but that's just one of the few planning phases to implement something.

Ohhh, that is sooo interesting. I never thought about it from that perspective.

My mindset is how could I use code to solve problems. As a programmer you get really good at solving problems, but the problem is you run out of problems to solve so you have to invent imaginary problems to solve. Lol.

So when a real problem pops up you're super excited to figure out how to use the programming languages you've spent thousands of hours learning to solve that problem. Lol.

[contigo26]

Ohhh, that is sooo interesting. I never thought about it from that perspective.

My mindset is how could I use code to solve problems. As a programmer you get really good at solving problems, but the problem is you run out of problems to solve so you have to invent imaginary problems to solve. Lol.

So when a real problem pops up you're super excited to figure out how to use the programming languages you've spent thousands of hours learning to solve that problem. Lol.

Wish I could love programming but I really had difficulty learning HTML, CSS, PHP, and stuff.